Four-ball genus bounds and a refinement of the Ozsváth-Szabó tau invariant (Q308015)

For a knot \(K\subset S^3\), the \(4\)-ball genus is defined as \(g_4(K)=\min\{g(\Sigma)\}\), where \(g(\Sigma)\) denotes the genus of the surface \(\Sigma\) which is smoothly embedded in \(B^4\) with \(\partial\Sigma=K\). The \(4\)-ball genus gives a lower bound on the unknotting number of a knot. Two knots \(K_1\) and \(K_2\) are said to be concordant if \(g_4(K_1\#-K_2)=0\), where \(-K_2\) denotes the reverse of the mirror image of \(K_2\). A knot \(K\) in \(S^3\) equips the chain complex \(\widehat{CF}(S^3)\) of the Heegaard Floer homology group \(\widehat{HF}(S^3)\) with a filtration \({\mathcal F} : \widehat{CF}(S^3)\rightarrow\mathbb{Z}\). The inclusion from the set \({\mathcal F}(K,m)\) of generators with filtration level no bigger than \(m\) into \(\widehat{CF}(S^3)\) induces maps \(\iota^m_K: H_*({\mathcal F}(K,m)) \rightarrow \widehat{HF}(S^3) \cong \mathbb{Z}\) in homology. In [Geom. Topol. 7, 615--639 (2003; Zbl 1037.57027)], \textit{P.~Ozsváth } and {Z.~Szabó} defined a concordance invariant \(\tau(K)\) for knots \(K\) as the smallest \(m\) for which \(\iota _K^m\) is nontrivial. The invariant \(\tau\) defines a homomorphism from the knot concordance group to \(\mathbb{Z}\). If \(K\) is an alternating knot, then \(2\tau(K)=-\sigma (K)\), where \(\sigma (K)\) is the classical knot invariant, the signature. Like the signature, \(\tau(K)\) can also be used to give lower bounds on the 4-ball genus \(g(K)\) of \(K\). The authors proved the inequality \(|\tau(K)|\leq g(K)\). In this paper, the authors construct a concordance invariant \(\nu^+(K)\) associated to the knot Floer complex and defined as a minimum of \(\{k\in\mathbb Z\}\) for which \(v_k^+:A^+_k\to CF^+(S^3)\) is nontrivial. They give examples in which the invariant \(\nu^+(K)\) provides arbitrarily better bounds on the \(4\)-ball genus than the Ozsváth-Szabó \(\tau\)-invariant. They prove that for any positive integer \(p\), there exists a knot \(K\) with \(\tau(K)\geq 0\) and \(\tau(K)+p\leq \nu^+(K)=g_4(K)\). Also, they show that for alternating knots the invariant \(\nu^+\) is completely determined by the signature of the knot, that is, \(\nu^+(K)=\begin{cases} 0 & \text{if }\sigma(K)\geq 0\)